Feels like it.

I’m having a rough day today, so sorry if I’m extra cranky.

Too much in my life right now that I cannot control, and it’s making me extremely tense.

So… out of control, really tense, on the edge of freaking out.

This is going to be an awesome day!

ADDENDUM the First:
Went out to lunch with a friend. Had a small chocolate dessert. Came back and was able to schedule a massage therapy appointment for tomorrow. Things are better already.

Now I just have to get through my Photoshop class without the computers exploding.

ADDENDUM the Second:
This post and some of the following comments have been edited, for what are probably obvious reasons to those who made the comments.

How to end a difficult day.

Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet Brownies (from Cookies and Brownies * OOP)

6 tbs unsalted butter
3 oz bittersweet chocolate
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
2/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 325.

Butter a square 9″x9″ baking pan, and line up two sides with parchment paper.

In double broiler, melt chocolate and butter. As soon as chocolate and butter are melted, remove from pot from heat. Add sugar and stir well. Add vanilla and salt and stir well. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring. Add one cup flour and stir until incorporated. Add nuts; batter should start to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until brownies *just* start to pull away from the edge of the pan.

Cool one hour.

If eating while warm, a scoop of vanilla ice cream is perfect.

* This is one of my favorite cookbooks. It’s relatively short, but every recipe I’ve tried is perfect. And judging by the Amazon website, I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Here’s an excerpt of a conversation I have last night with Michael.

Guvf cbfg jnf erzbirq orpnhfr, yvxr vg be abg, zl jro fvgr vf n choyvp sbehz, naq nf zhpu nf fbzr guvatf znl or gehr, naq znl znxr zr srry orggre, gurl qba’g arrq gb or fnvq.

Rira va ebg 13.

Explains a lot, that does.

But I will admit that it did amuse me to post in rot 13. So I may do so in the future, for fun rather than to be cranky.

Cuz nobody wants cranky.

Well, that’s it.

I just put my letters in the (campus) mail telling the chair and my advisor that I’m quitting the MPH program.

Looking back, I can see that my problems keeping up with my courses were the first sign of my depression that I ignored, or refused to see for what it was. But now I realize that was when my depression started to spiral out of control, and that my coursework was hurting and not helping my ability to stabilize my mental health.

Part of me feels like a quitter. After all, I really only had my practicum to complete for the degree. However, I very well know that the practicum (for a variety of reasons) is the most miserable part of the program, and one that I would definitely be unable to deal with at this point in my life. (All I’ll say is that if I want someone to be mean to me, I’ll go spend time with my mother.)
But the other parts of me see this as a huge weight off my shoulders. For the past couple years I haven’t even been sure that the MPH was even the right program for me. But be that as it may, I have learned a lot from my classes, much of which has served me well not only in dealing with my grandmother moving in with me, but in learning the rules and regulations surrounding Medicare and Medicaid as older family members have had to move into assisted care facilities.

And really, there is no such thing as wasted knowledge. Everything one learns is useful, even if it’s just in exercising one’s brain. Now I just have to leave the brain exercising up to myself, and make sure that I continue to be aware of my mental health, and not let myself reach the depths to which I had sunk for the past two years.

So I’m sad about not finishing the program, but I am also relieved that I no longer have to worry about finishing the program.

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seriously made one (the ones you make as a kid when you’re all excited to stay up past you bedtime and make something up off the top of your head just because that’s what you’re supposed to do totally don’t count.)

If I decide that something needs to be changed or done, then I simply do it. (I’m impulsive like that.) I decided I needed to start exercising, so I start walking that day at lunch. I decide that I needed upper body strength, I sign up for the gym the next day.

(The closest I’ve come to planning out a major change was spending two months reading magazines full of “Get Organized!” articles, and then deciding one day to organize the basement, including going and buying all the boxes and bins and baskets I’d thought were interesting in all those magazine articles. [The result? Total win!])

I’ve never understood the idea of waiting until the end of the year, making up a whole list of things you don’t like about yourself, and then try to change everything at once. That’s just a recipe for failure, which seems like a good way to feel even worse about yourself than you did when you made a list of everything that was wrong with yourself.
But as I read magazines and blogs that talk about resolutions, I’ve started to think about whether there are things I need to resolve to do. (Mind you, the fact I’m still in therapy for my depression makes me even more introspective than usual.) I realized that in a little under two and a half years I turn forty. And even though I like birthdays, that’s still a pretty big turning point. So I started to wonder if there was something about myself that I’d like to change before I reach that point?

At which point, like any normal American female, I started listing off things I don’t like about myself: my hair, my skin, my shape…

Then I stopped and said fuck this. There is nothing horribly wrong with me. No, I’m not perfect, but NO ONE is perfect. So why would I even try the impossible?

Thus I decided. What I want to do by the time I turn forty is to be comfortable with myself as I am. I want to be able to look in a mirror and be happy with what I see, and be comfortable in my own skin.
And I think over the past couple years I’ve been taking baby steps in that direction. I’ve been learning how to deal with my hair. I’ve been trying different things for my skin–making an effort instead of just ignoring it. And those things are helping, because although I can’t control every element of my life, there are things I can do to make life easier for myself. (i.e. anti-frizz serum is the best stuff in the whole world.)
So there you have it. My resolution. To become comfortable with myself, as I am, by my 40th birthday.

Now I just need suggestions for how to go about doing it.

I’ve been having strange dreams recently. Well, that’s nothing unusual, since between my imagination and the anti-depressants, I’m used to strange dreams.

What I mean is that I’ve been having strange dreams for me.

For the past week I have been having unusually violent dreams, where the protagonist (sometimes me, but not always–about half my dreams seem to be third person) gets beat up or tortured.

On one hand, the meaning seems rather obvious. Considering that part of my depression has stemmed from beating myself up over infractions both real and imagined, this seems pretty straightforward. Except for the fact that these dreams started just recently, as I have become more adept at recognizing self-blame for what it is, and refusing to blame myself for the problems of others. In other words, as my depression has retreated and I have become better at dealing with the things and people who caused me problems, my subconscious seems to have decided to make the whole “beating myself up” thing quite literal–at least in my dreams.

Is it a problem? Not really. I’ve been fascinated by dreams since I was in college, and how the most vivid ones tend to your self-consciousness sending you a message. What I’m confused about now is whether my subconscious is getting in it’s last kicks as I learn to ignore inappropriate guilt, or whether it’s trying to tell me that I’m not doing as well as I think I’m doing, and I still have lots of work ahead of me.

Or perhaps it’s simply trying to get me to finish my current WIP so I can move into a new story seeded by one of my freaky dreams.

Except that it’s really going to have to cut back on the sadism if it expects me to find anything useful.

MOUNTAINEER E-NEWS
Dec. 13, 2007

WVU declares Dec. 27th a holiday

WVU employees on the main campus and regional/division campuses will
enjoy an additional day off during the holiday season, says WVU
President Mike Garrison.

Gov. Joe Manchin granted all state workers additional half days off on
Monday, Dec. 24, and Monday, Dec. 31.

Since WVU already had those days scheduled as holidays, the University
will instead take Thursday, Dec. 27th, as an additional holiday.

In his announcement, Manchin urged state employees to use the time off
to “enjoy family, friends and celebrations that bind us together.”

Employees who already requested that time off will not be charged
annual leave. Please work with your Expert Business Office (EBOs) to
retract your request. Benefits will also remind EBOs to cancel any leave
requests for Dec. 27th.

For additional information or clarification, call the Classification
and Compensation unit at 293-4809.

Official University holidays will now be Dec. 24-27, Dec. 31 and Jan.
1. WVU will be open and operating Friday, Dec. 28th.

Since I was already taking the 27th off, I’m now shifting that vacation day to the 4th. Which means that I won’t have to go back to work until the 7th now. Yippee!

If I don’t come back from vacation feeling relaxed, then there is something seriously wrong with me. Oh. Sorry. Something else seriously wrong with me.

(bounces off in glee)

I just realized that I haven’t been writing very much here recently–at least nothing of import–so I should probably briefly let anyone who cares know how things are going.

They’re going shockingly well, actually.

Not only is my depression under control (the OCD is something else entirely, but I think only much stronger medication will control that completely, and the anti-depressants are good enough that the OCD symptoms I do have are not bothering me), but my anxiety levels have dropped low enough that I am able to deal with stressors in a normal and healthy manner.

This may not seem like a big thing, but for the past two years, when one thing after another was piled on me, I was at the point where any new trauma was pushing me to the breaking point, and even small problems were becoming beyond my ability to deal with.

Now, despite several somewhat major stresses cropping up, I have handled things with (for me) grace and aplomb. I’ve remained as calm as warranted by the situation, and when I felt I was starting to freak out, took steps to back away, and if that didn’t help, did things to actively calm myself down.

This is a huge change for me. My normal modus operandi is to react first, regret later. (That is, unfortunately, not an exaggeration.) But recently I’ve been calm enough to consider what I should do before taking action.

The only downside is that I am still unable to differentiate reasonable reactions from overreactions, and so poor Michael keeps being asked, “am I overreacting or is it reasonable for me to be upset about this?” This answers so far have been that my reactions have been reasonable.

This isn’t to say that things are perfect. However, I’m slowly gaining the ability to step away from the things (read: people) that have caused me problems in the past, and will continue to cause me problems in the future, and accept that their problems are not my problems, no matter how much they may try to make them so. This may sound like something everyone else in the world learned as children, but I am only now learning to take this to heart.

I’ve still got a way to go, which is why I am remaining on my meds for awhile, and will continue seeing my happy doctor in the near future. But having dealt with my particular demons for twenty years now, I’m willing to be patient as necessary.

And I’m taking the joys in life as they come, be they good news or a geeky t-shirt.

After all, as the epicureans once said, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” I’m better off concentrating on the merry of today than borrowing trouble from tomorrow.

Sorry you all have been getting mostly single paragraph updates recently. There have been happenings around here. Nothing good, but nothing that really affected me directly. Just things that suck up huge amounts of time. On a positive note, my mood has been good enough right now that I was able to handle the issues that came up without stressing out or getting extremely upset. This is excellent news, because it means I may have my depression under control–at least for not.

Still not ready to go off my meds though. My mood hasn’t been stable long enough.

Additionally, I’ve been writing every weekday morning. I’m up to chapter 18 (page 49 of 85) so I’m at about the halfway point till I can start writing new material. (It’s been long enough that I desperately needed this editing fest because I’ve forgotten many details. Bonus: coherency is good.)

I’ve also been reading. Once my grandmother comes back, we’ll be watching DVDs most nights, so I’m enjoying the last of my quiet evenings. Of course I also can’t wait to get back to the first season of Heroes. We told her we wouldn’t watch anymore till she came back, and I’m more than ready to find out what happened.

As far as books, if you like mysteries, I highly recommend C.S. Harris‘ Sebastian St Cyr series. And if you like fantasy with your mysteries, I also am enjoying Tamara Siler Jones‘ Dubric series.

And I’m getting ready for Grandmom’s party this weekend. So far: apple pie in the freezer and the cookie part of the oreos are done. Tomorrow: carrot cake cupcakes. Friday: Bake pie, fill cookies, frost cupcakes. And somehow resist eating any of these baked delights.

But mostly, I’m happy and content, and just haven’t wanted to spend time outside of work on the computer.

So sorry bout the lack of updates. But not really.

Just wandered over the Hillbilly Sophisticate, and saw that S is going to be participating in NaNo this year. So head on over and give her some support! Of course, if she’s going to write 50k words in November, she might not have much time to read or respond to comments and e-mails.
Me, I’m going to do what I tried a couple years ago: I am going to try again to write every day. I’m going to pick up the story I dropped when my last bout of depression started (that’d be ~Jan 2006 for those keeping track) look at what needs revised, and then take it from there. I’d like to finish the story by the end of the year, but that’s a moving target rather than a hard goal.

After I finish that, I have a possible idea basis for the start of another story, from a very strange dream involving Victorian morals and dress, and rock concerts with electric guitars. (Kind of a twist on steampunk I suppose. But who can tell what my brain comes up with.)

So I’ll give you occasional updates, just to keep me honest. And feel free to heckle me if I don’t post any updates, because that probably means I’m slacking off.

(FWIW, I did some revisions on my story on the way to Florida. Gutted about half of the prologue, and started rewriting things that didn’t make as much sense as the could, in retrospect. Once the characters start living in my head again, I think I’ll be okay.)

I’m very glad that the end of the month is turning out to be nothing at all like the start of the month.

For further good news, my Dad’s PSA was 0.0, which it never was, even following his surgery. So it looks like the radiation therapy was effective. Which is a huge relief.

So, here’s another post that isn’t cranky or whiny! Yippee! Meanwhile, I’m just going to enjoy things going well, one day at a time.

I was just thinking that it’s probably just as important to write about the good days as it is the bad, so here’s the update on my depression: The vacation did wonders for me. I’ve been in a great mood for two weeks now. I’m relaxed and calm and the little niggling details that were pushing me over the edge a month ago are being taken in stride.

Of course my grandmother is still visiting my aunt, so in addition to being relaxed, I’m also not worried about her right now, which is helping to keep my stress levels low. I’m hoping that by the time she comes back from her visit to fawn over the new cousins I’ll have stabilized my mood even further, and be better able to deal with the day to day stresses.

And I have also finally admitted that her living with us does cause me some stress. Pretending that the addition of a third person into our small house was not stressful was stupid and foolish on my part, because if I am unwilling to admit to the stress, then there’s not way in the hell I can actually DEAL with the stress. So there it is. Being stressed doesn’t mean I mean I love her less or want her to move out. It just means I’m stressed and need to find healthy ways to cope.
Additionally, I’ve finally given up on the Rec Center, and we went today to join HealthWorks. If I can’t get out of bed to go to the Rec in the morning, then I won’t got to the gym that day, because it’s not worth going to the Rec in the afternoon. But we can go the HealthWorks immediately after work, so I can start exercising again, which should also positively influence my mood.

So there is plenty that’s good in my life. My OCD still sometimes feels like it wants to slip out of control, but my anxiety and depression are very low right, which is a very good thing. And recognizing that this is a pretty important thing to note.

The search function for my database is done for now. Yay me!

Next up: how to add more books to the database, which means updating multiple records from a single form. Then I want to start linking the database to the book portion of my website. Unless I can figure something out, that may be a whole lot of drudge work.

We’ll see.

But for now, it is totally past my bedtime. If I want to keep my depression under control, I need at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I often feel like a toddler, going to bed so early, but it’s better than the alternative.

I’ve decided that I needed to have taken a vacation about a year ago.

Despite all the crap of the previous week, there is something to be said for being somewhere nothing is expected and having absolutely no plans. Sure, I’ve taken vacations, but they often involve trying to do things while I’m at whatever location. It is a completely different feeling to have a schedule that reads for the entire day, “Meet for dinner at six.”

No cooking. No cleaning. No plans at all.

Apparently, I have to be forced to have absolutely no plans and no ability to sneak in work before I can actually relax.

And it was well worth it. I came back to work feeling better than I have in ages, having slept well for an entire week, and allowed myself to actually relax without feeling guilty, as if I should be doing something else more important. It’s also done wonders for my depression and anxiety. The only time my mood was off at all last week was when I got headaches from too much sun, and the one time I got busy and forgot to eat lunch. (Trust me. This is a bad thing. A very bad thing.) Even things being crazy at work today didn’t faze me in the slightest. I just grinned and dealt with it, and continued being relaxed and happy.

Now I just have to create the ability to do this without going to a foofy expensive resort.